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Being an entrepreneur is a demanding profession. Having
experienced the entrepreneurial world for my entire professional
career, I’ve learned that achieving a work-life balance is often
difficult to do. While some are able to achieve this
balance easier than their peers, while others struggle with this
balance and never achieve it.

Having seen numerous friends and acquaintances lose the fight for
balance and ultimately end up with a disaster -- either in their
business or personal life -- I thought it would be appropriate to
lean on the advice of some of the wisest people I know -- both
dead and alive -- to give you a cheat sheet to a happy life.

1. Enjoy the journey. As mentioned above, famed
essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us that you’re not
in a race: Life doesn’t provide us with any drama in how it ends.
And those that are obsessed with the end results are often
blinded to the sheer wonder that is provided during the journey.

Don’t get too caught up in the daily grind. Make time to
get out and enjoy the journey. A profit and loss statement
will never be as fulfilling as a night of laughter with
friends. Another board meetings will never provide you with
the same joy as making your kids laugh or an hour playing with
your dog in the park.

Yes, there are responsibilities you cannot always shirk.
But if you were to give the same level of importance to your
happiness as you do business, then you’d skip business meetings
in order to avoid missing a social event, rather than the other
way around.

2. You only get one life. Don’t live someone else’s
dream. “You must live in the present, launch
yourself on every wave, and find your eternity in each moment.
Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward
another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but
this.”
--Henry David Thoreau

I’ve heard it a million times. “When I’m _____, I’ll be
able to do _____.” Replacing the blanks with any number of
terms -- millionaire, famous and stronger, along with
retire, be happy and travel -- often sets you up for
disappointment.

Regardless of what you’re waiting for, all you’re doing is
renting the present out to your future.

Most of us will never achieve our "x." Does that mean your
life is a failure? Far from it. The only failure can
come from ignoring the present you live in to focus on the future
you may never have.

Business people are more prone to this than others. Our
world is based on projections and forecasts. And because of
this, we end up delaying, postponing and ignoring our current
happiness to achieve a perceived greater happiness in the future.

Todays are unlimited but tomorrows are a finite resource that
quickly dwindle. So live in the todays.

3. The grass isn’t always greener. “Be
thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you
concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have
enough”
--Oprah Winfrey

There’s a psychological term that every business person needs to
learn: The Hedonic Treadmill. It’s the mind’s adaptation to
new and shiny things, and its subsequent need for newer and
shinier things.

No matter what you aspire to own, if you’re doing it for vanity,
envy, status or some other reason related to self-fulfillment,
you are in danger of hopping on the Hedonic Treadmill.
Whatever you own, someone will always have something nicer.
Even if the item isn’t in fact nicer, your mind will perceive it
as nicer.

You will find that it’s difficult to be fulfilled by material
possessions and will constantly be chasing the next high you get
whenever you buy the newer, nicer thing. But sooner or
later that high wears off, and you’re left running on a treadmill
that’s now rolling too fast.

Don’t carry your happiness in possessions: They make for poor
vessels.

4. Success is the result of failure. “Many
of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they
were to success when they gave up.”
--Thomas A. Edison

Wildly successful people aren’t great at success: They’re great
at failure. They understand failure’s role in their journey
to achieve success. The saddest story is that of the man
who opines his failures and how they kept him from his
success. To bring up Thomas Edison’s point, could that
man’s success have simply been on the other side of his next
failure?

Do not get discouraged. Your success is just around the corner
from your last failure.

5. Keep reminding yourself. “Remembering
that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the
trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are
already naked. There is no reason not to follow your
heart.”
--Steve Jobs

Take Jobs's words to heart. There is nothing holding you
back from achieving your business dreams as well as living a life
of happiness. There’s nothing for you to lose, so follow
your heart and enjoy the journey.

The key to change is remembering the impetus that set you on the
path towards change. If you let that impetus fade from your
mind, so too will your drive to achieve that change.